At the British Museum 
Peter Campbell
Michelangelo’s red-chalk study from life for the Sistine Chapel Creation of Adam is one of ninety or so sheets to be seen at the British Museum until 25 June. This drawing triumphantly illustrates Vasari’s claim that God had ‘decided to send into the world an artist who could be skilled in each and every craft, whose work alone would teach us how to attain perfection in design by correct drawing and by the use of contour and light and shadows, so as to obtain relief in painting’. If perfection and correctness were the end of art, Michelangelo could indeed be said to have found a route to at least one version of it.
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Peter Campbell is the London Review’s resident designer and art critic.
Other articles by this contributor:
At Tate Britain · Hamish Fulton
At the British Museum · Living, Dying and Enlightenment
Among the Artefacts · Peter Campbell at the V&A
In Russell Square · Peter Campbell explores Bloomsbury
At the Royal Academy · Matisse’s revelations
In the Park · Frank Gehry’s Pavilion
At Tate Britain · Paula Rego
At Tate Modern · the fairground at Bankside
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